Am I still the only one who doesn't use dark mode? My astigmatism can't take it

ninkendo 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I use light mode in the day when it’s bright, and dark mode at night when it’s dark. Neither mode is “better” for me, but two things are true for me:

- Dark mode is harder to read when it’s bright out

- Light mode is blindingly bright when I’m in a dark room (and turning the brightness sufficiently low makes everything look washed out.)

My devices change from light mode to dark mode at sunset and it’s basically ideal.

Also it’s nice to just have less artificial light as the sun sets, which makes falling asleep naturally a bit easier.

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MBCook 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No. It’s stupid. There’s a reason we don’t write white text on black paper. There’s a reason the first Mac showing black text on a white background was such an improvement.

I don’t get the point at all (and don’t want to hear it, I’ve seen the arguments before).

It’s nice it’s there for people who want it but it baffles me it’s constantly treated like the greatest thing ever.

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echoangle 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> There’s a reason we don’t write white text on black paper.

Because wood is bright and you can’t really print white ink on a black paper?

There might be a usability advantage but using black ink on white paper doesn’t really prove that, that’s just the easier option of the two possible choices.

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kalleboo 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> There’s a reason the first Mac showing black text on a white background was such an improvement

Apple soon started offering a dark mode as an accessibility feature https://kalleboo.com/linked/mac_closeview_control_panel.png

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MBCook an hour ago | parent [-]

That’s an accessibility feature.

It was not an intended way to use things all the time for a large chunk of the user population.

Not the same.

	▲	bondolo an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, just wait until you are not the target market.

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redwall_hp 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I find dark mode is better for astigmatism, personally. It also isn't hellish if you have floaters and migraines, unlike light mode.

The preference, either way, is an important accessibility feature.

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consumer451 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have the opposite issue. That's why I have my system theme set to dark, and likely you to light, and this has existed for years:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/A...

FFS. It's 2026, how does every single website, especially this one, not support this?

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loloquwowndueo 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, you’re not the only one, I can’t read dark mode, it’s all blurry, makes me squint and gives me a headache. Light colors all day long. Light mode is not a mode - it’s the default.

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rbits an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's why every site should respect the user's light/dark preference when possible. Dark mode vs light mode is very divisive

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wiredfool 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, After a few minutes of dark mode, I get essentially zebra stripe like migraines.

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figmert 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For me I cannot deal with dark mode in bright environments, but equally it's fairly hard (though less hard) when using light mode in dark environments. It's why Dark Reader has been such a huge quality of life improvement for me.

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nozzlegear 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't use it either, and find most website dark modes really difficult to read. The text blurs together or worse, it gets "burned in" to my vision briefly (not sure what that phenomenon is called). I especially dislike the ones that are pitch black instead of the cool grey/dark grey. I was hoping this "Adaptive Dark Mode" announcement was going to adaptively do away with the pitch black dark modes that make it impossible for me to read a website by adapting them to any other color scheme. =P

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madeofpalk 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No.

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isityettime 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is your astigmatism uncorrectable?

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sheept 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Even if it were, it’s easier and more reasonable to fix your app to work with your users, than fixing your users to work with your app.

	▲	isityettime 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Everyone deserves configurable and hackable apps, which is the only real way to work towards universal accessibility. I can't personally support light modes in my own software because I can't use/test them, but I'd still add an untested one and fix bug reports about it. I'm just curious about what people mean when they talk about astigmatism in this context, because the term is usually thrown around without qualifications (plain "astigmatism" as opposed to "irregular astigmatism" or "uncorrectable astigmatism"). So I'm curious about the astigmatism of people for whom dark mode on glowing devices is a problem. Is it typically extremely severe? Is it typically uncorrectable? Is it that people's glasses or contacts are often subtly wrong/outdated? Are many astigmatics not myopic or presbyopic enough to wear glasses all the time anyway? Astigmatism is a broad category and I'm curious about the specific impairments people who avoid dark mode have, in part because I have astigmatism and nonetheless prefer (require, really) dark mode because of other vision problems.

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kps 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not them, but my left eye isn't fully correctable. The average dark mode site looks like I'm driving the Las Vegas strip in the rain.